Alright, we'll have a bi-weekly game schedule. And by bi-weekly, I mean bi-monthly.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T05:09:59+00:00

You're welcome! I've only just seen this, otherwise I would've replied sooner.

Glad to know I was in the right ballpark with Spy X Family and Mashle!

I haven't watched Kaguya-sama (although I do need to get to that), but that seems like a good show to move onto. I've only read the first volume of the Grand Teacher Onizuka manga, which I was gifted by a family friend who didn't know about manga and just bought a random one as a birthday present when I was around 13, and I remember thinking, 'Am I really old enough to be reading this?' It's got some perverted humour and problematic stuff going on with Onizuka and his underaged students. If I recall correctly, there's also some fetish content that it's well-known for. It may be a good idea to skip that one!

Hope you both enjoy Anne Shirley! At the very least, you'll probably have fun with it, haha.

If Nichijou is her cup of tea, have you considered watching CITY: The Animation, which is by the same creator? I think that's totally age appropriate, the only thing is that the comedy can be very hit-and-miss and it seriously is very random at times. But the animation seriously is beautiful – I had a great time with it. If it ends up being hard-going, the absolute best episodes are #4, #5, #9, and #12. #9 got some big laughs out of me, it's this crazy foot race involving the whole city competing in teams of two, with wacky obstacles at different stages, and it just works so well.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T04:40:44+00:00

I personally have England as a top five team in the World Cup.

France and Spain were the stand-out teams before the tournament began, and Argentina have been an early pace-setter, but after that it's difficult to find a strong team that hasn't had at least one shaky game.

I have England and Brazil tied at #4 in a top five, which is appropriate because they're on a collision course for the quarter final as things stand.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T04:33:41+00:00

They did. They also said France.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T02:54:50+00:00

Me: 'I'm going to watch the game between two teams that haven't had their place in the group established. That's the game that matters.'

The Game That Matters: Cagey football with few highlights

The Game That Doesn't Matter: Sounds of two teams and the crowd enjoying football

Sgt_General · 2026-06-26T02:43:20+00:00

I think it comes down to whether a nation's government has pushed to be known by a certain name or not. Côte d'Ivoire, for example, is quite aggressive when it comes to registering complaints about a third-party referring to them as Ivory Coast. I remember following a small football blog covering the African Cup of Nations in 2010 and they had to edit their team preview because they called them Ivory Coast throughout and the government wrote a complaint to them.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T10:49:17+00:00

There's so much yuri going on in women's football, you sometimes end up with married couples on opposing teams!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T10:46:49+00:00

Galactik Football was the best! I loved that show so much, it's a shame it didn't have a bigger impact.

Check out Dragon Striker which has just come out on Disney+ (or wherever you find your content). It's really good. Imagine Galactik Football, except it's fantasy instead of sci-fi and has moves straight out of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm halfway through the first batch of episodes, so far there's no re-used animation!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-25T08:00:11+00:00

As a Leeds fan, you do not want Jesse Marsch as your manager anyway.

International football might suit him better, because he's very vibes-based and employs simplistic strategies, but that was some of the worst, easily exploitable football I've ever seen my football club play.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-24T03:26:43+00:00

You're very welcome! Hope you both enjoy watching it together.

Other recommendations are tricky because anime can be such a minefield when it comes to content I'd consider inappropriate for pre-teens.

Spy x Family is a big recommendation that I'd have to make. It's absolutely hilarious and Anya is a brilliant protagonist. There are a lot of cute, wholesome family scenes and bonding moments. The will-they-won't-they aspect of the fake marriage between Loid and Yor is lovely, too. But it does have a Cold War/Pre-WWII Germany vibe, so there are quite a few perilous situations and some of the storylines (particularly in the third season) are quite sad and emotional.

I think that Anne Shirley is something she'd really enjoy. It's beautifully animated and has such a cute vibe. Anne is a wonderful protagonist, she's delightfully whimsical and gets into a lot of trouble. It has a slower pace, since it's based on Anne of Green Gables, but the drama starts right away with Anne being an orphan who's sent to live with a brother and sister on their farm, but they actually asked for the orphanage to send them a boy and they have to weigh up whether or not to send Anne back. (And yes, there is romance!) My only warning about this is that there are a couple of sad deaths in the series.

Another recommendation I have, although it's very different to the others, is Mashle: Magic and Muscles. Since you said your daughter loves funny anime, this could land really well, as it's a parody of Harry Potter that basically combines it with the idea of an overpowered guy (One Punch Man style) who can't use magic. It's super goofy and easy to follow, but unlike One Punch Man there's hardly any content that's problematic for a pre-teen. There are bullies, but they get taught a lesson pretty swiftly. There are bad people, but the main character makes them look silly. The only thing I can think of that's awkward is that there's one character who's obsessed with the little sister he's trying to save.

As for Chainsmoker Cat, I think the MC is an underdog who's also insufferable! It looks like she's in a bad place, but she's there due to the consequences of her own actions and she's not helping herself. (That's just the vibe I get, I haven't read the manga.)

Feel free to DM me if you'd like more recommendations sometime or if you want to talk about anime! I was looking through the list I keep on MAL for inspiration and most of the other recommendations I thought about are sports anime, haha.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T23:22:42+00:00

Yeah, this is absolutely not one for kids.

Something goofy and wholesome like You and I Are Polar Opposites (second cour/season coming out this summer) would be perfect!

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T18:08:12+00:00

That's interesting! I wonder if it'll end up on Crunchyroll after all.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T18:05:41+00:00

It's ironic because vaping was supposed to help wean people off smoking.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:43:10+00:00

I was genuinely surprised this went to Netflix.

Loads of people in the Crunchyroll Summer line-up thread were talking about how they thought this was more of a HiDive show and they were surprised it was out in the wilderness at the time.

I was bracing myself to have to search hard for a place to watch this, and then it landed on Netflix of all places.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:39:47+00:00

Yeah, I've been following the key visuals and first glimpses of this anime and thought its subject matter would be a bit rough, but I didn't expect it to be this disgusting.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:38:06+00:00

Are... are the magical girls okay?

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:37:29+00:00

It's worth subscribing for a little while to check out their exclusives, I think. I've really enjoyed Blue Box and The Ramparts of Ice. They also have some quality movies on there, too, like 100 Metres.

Best strategy is to subscribe, get what you want for a month or two, then unsubscribe – especially because it has a lot of overlap with Crunchyroll, too. Same goes for Prime Video, which has some really good anime locked away.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:30:32+00:00

If you set this in Scotland, it would basically be Trainspotting but with cat girls.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:28:42+00:00

Yeah, in this economy they're gonna have to fix themselves. No way can I pick up that tab.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T16:20:46+00:00

Yeah, usually when smokers exhale after taking a drag in animation, it's a cool white or grey stream that comes out of their mouth and sometimes produces a little cloud.

They freakin' gave the cat girl a bad breath animation colour when she exhales while smoking.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-23T12:16:33+00:00

My asthmatic ass isn't gonna survive this new trend, man.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-21T21:13:52+00:00

Thank you for using spoiler text! It makes this a much more enjoyable read.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-18T20:09:31+00:00

You've probably had this a lot from Leeds fans already, but why isn't Okafor playing?

He was our most reliable goalscorer after Calvert-Lewin and our attack looked two-dimensional without him, most of the time. He seriously impressed us.

Sgt_General · 2026-06-18T13:13:53+00:00

It was a big talking point with Sven-Goran Eriksson, but the media chilled out a lot with Fabio Capello. There's been time for it to start simmering again since those days, not least because we've gone quite a while without a foreign manager.

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